The Anxieties of Childhood

Alan Challoner MA MChS

Abstract
In this short paper, the basic anxieties of infants: separation anxiety and stranger anxiety are described, and their place in the attachment process is discussed.

There are two sorts of anxieties that all babies have to surmount: separation anxiety and stranger anxiety. That they do surmount these is due to a process of learning and the acquisition of trust. In a world which, at first, every moment presents challenge, and every day presents new experiences, a baby needs to understand his environment. He does this by being able to rely on his primary carer. This reliance is not just for food, shelter, warmth and protection, but is a platform from which he can, at his own pace and in his own way, discover a world that wants him and in which he can find the sorts of experiences that will allow him to become a stable adult an adult who understands his culture and whose culture accepts him. That many children who have the benefit of staying within their birth family do not achieve this happy status is well-known -- and yet many parents who try to fulfil a loving and caring rle as adoptive parents still find it hard to understand why their chosen child seems perversely against the love that they so want to bestow -- finds it difficult to fit into what seems a stable and happy family -- and returns hardship when kinship is offered. To try and understand this apparent paradox it helps to look again at the two sorts of anxieties noted above. If the tendency to remain closely attached to a parent persisted, children would never outgrow their dependence on their care-takers. To become self-sufficient, they must explore the environment, encounter new objects and new experiences, and learn how to cope with them. However before this stage is reached another hurdle has to be jumped, that of the beginnings of anxiety. Although we all have been provided with two possible and basic alternatives to deal with anxiety or its more serious associate fear, i.e., fight or flight; an infant or very young person is initially incapable of either. Indeed from eight or nine months of age a baby will become anxious over the intangible -- absence. When babies are left alone and awake, particularly when older than eight months, many of them very quickly begin to cry, and become distressed that no one (particularly mother or the main care-taker) can be seen. They are exhibiting separation anxiety, and this stays with them until they are at least ten to fifteen months old; in some cases to beyond the age of three years. If a child has to go through this situation several times, not only will separation anxiety become an established part of its development, it will not be able to feel that it can trust its carers. It will be ever ready for another change -- and changes at this time of a childs life are of much more moment than those that develop later, when it has developed some independence. Indeed sooner rather than later (if these circumstances persist) it will develop a sort of perverse independence that is closer to being withdrawn -- or alternatively overtly challenging-- than would accrue from the freedoms experienced from more normal development. The child therefore relies on its own limited intellect and on its instinctive responses, none of which have been honed in circumstances that appertain to its own cultural milieu. To repair this situation trust has to be gained, reliance on others has to be learned, and there has to be a willingness to accept the environment for what it is and for what it is going to be. Looked at in these terms, it is not surprising that behavioural difficulties occur during this process -- or series of processes. In fact that a child settles at all in an adoptive situation

should be seen, not only as a triumph over adversity for the child but as an achievement of monumental proportions for the adoptive family. Even before separation anxiety becomes apparent, babies show what is called stranger anxiety. They will usually smile if the mother shows her face to them. If a strangers face appears instead, they often show anxiety by turning away and perhaps crying. This can occur from as early as four months, though it has been demonstrated that infants with a mean age as young as 45 hours can discriminate its mothers face from that of a stranger. Again, the explanation may be that the appearance of the strange face creates uncertainty. The baby has acquired some sort of mental representation or perceptual expectation of the familiar face, and this is violated by an unfamiliar one. Once more then we can begin to understand how the changes that occur in the life of a displaced child can affect his understanding of the world around him. John Bowlby wrote that attachment was: an urge to keep proximity or accessibility to someone seen as stronger or wiser, and who if responsive is deeply loved, comes to be recognised as an integral part of human nature and as having a vital rle to play in life. And: What is believed to be essential for mental health is that the infant and young child should experience a warm, intimate and continuous relationship with his mother (or permanent mother substitute) in which both find satisfaction and enjoyment. If the faces around him are constantly changing, or none of them are there often enough, or long enough, or readily enough, to establish trust, the child will come to see his environment as an alien place. His anxieties will eventually drive him to fight or become aggressive and belligerent, or to flight, when he will become withdrawn and seek comfort from within himself.